The Gift of Love
by deangirl1
Summary: Is it better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all? This is kinda a "super-drabble"....


**Disclaimer: **_Don't own 'em. This is purely for fun – no profit involved!!!_

**A/N**: _This is my first original composition for this site. I'm not posting it elsewhere, so I'm desperate for your feedback! Not sure where it came from. No real spoilers but does take place in season 3 – though not a deal story._

_Really this should have been a Dean birthday fic, but I was in a law school induced coma at that time…._

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**THE GIFT OF LOVE**

Sam sat at the wobbly table in their current shabby motel room. It was almost too dark to see the heavily worn photo in his hand or the gift wrapped in newsprint that sat on the table in front of him.

Sam was lost in his memories. Sometimes he thought it would be easier to forget but that seemed like a betrayal. He owed her so much and he missed her so much. He ached to feel her in his arms, even after all this time. Yet, he still had the memories of how right it felt. To be complete. To know that someone loved you for who you were, no strings attached and not because you were family. Someone who loved _you_.

Sam could still remember thinking why would she want to go out with me. It went a long way to explaining why she had had to do the asking out in the first place. He was just trying to keep a low profile. Fly under the radar. Learn how to be normal. Apparently, he knew how to at least fake it pretty convincingly because Jess had never had an inkling that he was a freak. At least she'd never said she thought he was a freak. When he called himself a freak she would just click her tongue at him and look at him with a puzzled frown.

"Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Talk yourself down. Call yourself a freak?"

Sam shrugged and dropped his eyes.

"You, my dear, are anything but a freak. You are a sweet, gentle, smart, sexy…." And then it had turned into a bit of a growl and it was less of the verbal persuasion and more of the physical persuasion.

If he closed his eyes, he could still be back in the warmth of her safe embrace. To be loved. Unconditionally. By someone who wasn't family. It was validating in a way that Sam had needed.

He'd had lots of time to think about where those qualities she saw in him had actually come from. If he'd had any kind of normal, he knew who he had to thank for that. If he'd been able to protect that part of himself that was still sweet and gentle and innocent, he knew he had not stood alone guarding that part of himself. Dean had protected those things in Sam. The very things that Dean had sacrificed in himself. Or at least buried.

Sam's only regret was that he hadn't trusted Jess to tell her everything. He had planned on doing it that night. The night before his interview that never happened. He knew now, as he had come to realize that night, that Jess would have understood. She would have accepted who he was and who his family was.

Sam had learned a lot about love. From Jess. Through Jess. Because of Jess.

Sam knew now that Dean loved him unconditionally. And Dean _did_ know what kind of a freak he was. Well. Maybe not all of it, not the demon blood part of it. Deep in his heart, though, Sam knew nothing would ever shake his brother's love for him. Sam hadn't always thought that. Sam thought that he had sacrificed his brother's love by going to Stanford. Sam had under estimated his brother. When other people under estimated Dean, Sam wanted to kick their ass.

Now he _knew_, that even though he had broken his brother's heart by leaving, his brother's heart had never abandoned him.

His brother's heart that was so big that it was constantly getting stepped on.

His brother's heart that was so big, and still couldn't find the space to love himself, to understand that others loved him.

That was so big and couldn't see that he deserved to be loved. Deserved it a lot more than a lot of other people.

Dean had never had that unconditional love from someone who wasn't family. Of course, there had been very few people outside of their immediate family who had ever had the chance to get to know Dean. Because Dean wasn't in the habit of leaving himself open to that. After all, if you couldn't trust family with your heart, how could you trust a complete stranger?

A one night stand was never about anything except the sex. If you never tried to make more of it, you couldn't get hurt.

Sam mourned for the validation that Dean had missed out on. It was natural to think that your family loved you because they had to. And then Sam had left. And then Dad had left. How loveable could you be if your own family left you?

Didn't love you.

When they had to.

Because they were family.

Sam loved his brother. He loved him enough to know that wasn't enough. It wasn't good enough. Because Dean deserved so much more. He deserved to have a Jess. Someone who loved him for how special he was. It didn't matter how much Sam knew that part of Dean. He could never reflect it back in the same way. In a way that Dean would see.

Sam was blessed, and he knew it. He'd had Jess and he still had Dean. It seemed so right that they had shared the same birthday.

Sam looked again at the gift in front of him on the table. It had been a gift from their mother to their father once upon a time. Sam had snagged it without saying a word to Dean the minute he'd seen it in the storage locker, knowing that it would be the perfect gift.

He wanted that love for Dean. The love that had existed between their parents and between himself and Jess.

Sam sighed, standing up and tucking the picture back inside his wallet. He moved between the beds to get some sleep. Dean was on his stomach with his head turned slightly away. He would never have done it had Dean been awake, but Sam's heart was still aching for his brother.

Sam ghosted his hand over Dean's short cropped hair.

"Happy birthday, bro," he whispered, "I love you."

Sam climbed into his own bed, sleep finally beginning to pull him into its warm embrace, back into a ghost image of the embraces he'd shared with Jess. Just before he joined Jess in sleep, he heard Dean shift in his bed.

"Me too, Sammy."

A/N: I didn't get enough hugs as a child, so please leave a review?????


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